Making The Most of December

 Making The Most of December

It is the last month of the year, which means that most of us are coming up with our business plans for 2021. While it is great to come up with a marketing calendar in advance, by jumping from November to January, you are essentially giving yourself a built-in excuse to forget about December and call it quits for the year. 

Just because it’s almost the start of the new year doesn’t mean that you can’t end 2020 on a good note by making new goals and going after them in the month of December. The same way we tell ourselves that we might as well wait until January first to start exercising, many business owners find themselves deciding to take a break in December and set new goals come the new year.

In today’s episode I am breaking down some of the excuses we tell ourselves when it comes to why we can’t uplevel our business at the end of the year, and how you can go about setting the tone for the month of December.

5 Common excuses we tell ourselves about our businesses in the month of December include:

1 –  “After Black Friday and Cyber Monday, nobody is buying for the rest of the year.”

• While Cyber Monday is the day when the online shopping season sees the first major spike in sales, the heaviest online buying day actually occurs much later, generally around the middle of December.
• According to Think With Google, the average holiday shopper in the U.S. has 53% of their shopping still remaining in December.
• In fact, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are so promotion heavy, it can be hard for your brand to stick out. It may even help you more to have a promotion in December.

2 – “If people are still buying, they aren’t spending money on big-ticket items.”

• This actually couldn’t be farther from the truth. The fact that the heaviest online buying day is mid to late december shows that people are making those larger purchases now, too. 
• In fact, since customers are making high priced purchases, it can be even easier to get them to buy an add-on product.
  • Think about it; when you go to the department store and have a cart full of gifts for your family, those last items near the check out are more likely to go into your cart than if you were only buying just one item. This is because your brain says “I’m already spending this much money today, why not add another small item or two?”
  • One or two small add-on items per customer may not be much money for them, but can add up for you as the seller quite quickly.

3 – “My ads budget was depleted in November and I really can’t afford another huge promotion right now.”

• There are many ways to achieve sales goals without large ad costs, especially this late in the year.
• At this point, many people are doing last minute shopping for the holidays and are now focusing on convenience and timeliness over a discounted price. 
• Take advantage of the consumer’s tendency to procrastinate and focus your tactics on things like free priority shipping and the ability for customers to complete their purchase and check out easily

4 – “Nobody is buying service based items because of the ‘new year, new me’ mindset.”

• The same way we as business owners often wait until the new year to set new goal, many consumers have the same mindset, telling themselves things like:
  • “I will get an accountability coach next year.” 
  • “In January, I will get serious about my lifestyle.” 
• As I mentioned earlier, the idea of waiting until January to start a new goal is extremely common in business and consumers alike. 
• Instead of trying to contest this, try leaning in and making it a part of your strategy.
  • Promote your service in a way of saying “If you don’t start laying the foundation of your goals now, it will be even longer until you start seeing results.”
  • This way, the customer feels like your service is giving them momentum for their new year’s goal.

Don’t forget you can still sell in December but have the program start in January

5 – “I don’t have the time left in the year to attract new leads to make the sale.”

• Chances are that you already have some warm leads and potential buyers who just need a little nudge in the right direction.
• Use the fact that consumers get overwhelmed when too many promotions are being targeted to them at once around Black Friday. This means that you probably have potential customers from your last promotion that put your item(s) in their cart, only to leave them there, unpurchased.
  • Target this already warm audience by sending out a cart abandonment email to remind them of what they are missing.
  • You could even give them a discount code for completing their order, or let them know of your awesome return policy so there isn’t really a risk in completing their purchase.
  • Since you already know the customer is interested in this specific product, you don’t have to waste the last of your advertising budget on a huge campaign to test the waters, and you will likely see a boost in sales from this technique alone. 
• I have said it once and I will say it again, identify your best seller. Use the data you should already have and  give your audience what they want. 
• You can easily place more concentration of your best seller on social media rather than having to waste time promoting all of your products or services individually.

In conclusion, there will always be an excuse not to make something happen if you make one. But know that for any excuse you come up with, there is likely another way of looking at it. So give yourself a pep talk, come up with a strategy, and go after your goals to finish 2020 out strong!

If you would like help preparing your 12-month marketing calendar, check out The Content Machine™ for tips and implementation strategies.